Family Suing Kamehameha Schools Can Stay Anonymous For Now
Their identities will be revealed to the school’s attorneys and the judge presiding over the case.
One of the families suing Kamehameha Schools will be allowed to remain anonymous, at least for now, as the case challenging the school’s admissions policy giving preference to Native Hawaiian children proceeds, a federal judge has ruled.
In an order filed earlier this month, U.S. District Judge Micah Smith wrote that the family, identified only as B.P. and I.P., “have not made a strong showing” that they have a reasonable fear of harm and could face retaliation for participating in the case.
Still, the volume of threats levied against the leaders of Students for Fair Admissions, the organization suing Kamehameha Schools, was enough to conclude that the family could face at least some hostile or threatening messages and online comments if their identities are revealed.
“That makes their stated fears of being the subjects of online messages of that sort reasonable, even if not by a wide margin,” Smith wrote.
The anonymity issue may be revisited as the lawsuit ramps up and enters the discovery phase, when both sides gather evidence to build their cases.
Two additional plaintiffs are also asking to join the lawsuit, according to another complaint filed against Kamehameha in federal court. The new lawsuit, also brought by Students for Fair Admissions, includes a current high school sophomore who was twice rejected by Kamehameha because she is not Hawaiian. She goes by the initials K.S.
According to Smith’s April 7 order, Students for Fair Admissions must reveal the identities of B.P. and I.P. under seal to Kamehameha. They will also be required to disclose the identities of other two families in the lawsuit to Kamehameha, known only as Family A and Family B in court records. Those families never applied to Kamehameha.
The identities of the families were also emailed to Smith to ensure he doesn’t have a conflict of interest presiding over the case. There appeared to be no conflict between the families and Smith, who wrote in a docket entry that “the court has identified nothing about these identities that would warrant disqualification.”
A written statement provided by Kamehameha spokesperson Sterling Wong said the school was grateful that the court ordered that the names of those plaintiffs be provided to the school.
“We remain deeply committed to student safety and leading from a place of kapu aloha,” the statement said. The school said it is “confident the facts and the law support our case.”
The request for B.P. and I.P. to stay anonymous came as death threats against the leaders and lawyers of the group suing Kamehameha Schools escalated. During a hearing in March, attorney Cam Norris said that 125 death threats have been made against attorneys representing Students for Fair Admissions as well as the group’s founder, Ed Blum. As of 2024, Blum was also on the board of another group that seeks to end a federal program that places Native Hawaiian doctors in underserved communities.
Norris said that forcing the family to out themselves at this early stage of the case would amount to “nothing more than gratuitous cruelty” in the event the case is dismissed before reaching trial.
Students for Fair Admissions, which won a landmark case in 2023 ending affirmative action in college admissions, is behind the lawsuit against Kamehameha. Online commenters have told Blum that he should be assassinated. The group’s lead attorney had a bag of what was believed to be feces mailed to his door.
During arguments over the anonymity issue, Joachim Cox, a lawyer for Kamehameha, denounced the threats, saying “these are not welcome comments.” But, he said, there was similar public discourse during the last two lawsuits challenging the admissions policy.
“There’s never been action on these threats,” Cox said. In the current case, he later added, “What we’re looking at here, your honor, is just conjecture.”
In the April 7 order, Smith wrote that none of the threats of physical violence or harassment resulting from this case so far have been directed at B.P. or I.P.
The mother and daughter are from a small town in Hawai‘i, according to court records.
They are not Native Hawaiian, and I.P.’s application to Kamehameha was rejected. Court records indicate that she has turned 18 since the lawsuit was filed last year.
In court documents, the family’s attorneys write that they worry about retaliation from supporters of Kamehameha. But Smith said during the hearing that although many of the messages he’s seen are disturbing, there’s no evidence that the threats are coming from Kamehameha’s backers.
“I don’t think there’s any evidence that they are supporters as much as they are people who just like to stir up trouble on the internet,” Smith said.
Civil Beat’s education reporting is supported by a grant from Chamberlin Family Philanthropy.
